Achilles at Night
by Former
Summary: Tony's attempts to help Bruce conquer his demons land all of the Avengers in trouble when he gets Clint abducted. With a visit from Loki on the horizon, the Avengers are running out of time to save anyone. Clint/Natasha, Tony/Loki, Tony/Bruce.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N; Due to ffnet's restrictions on character's listed I could only put two. Bruce/Tony/Clint are the protagonists of this story and the focus is on those three pretty evenly.**

* * *

Maybe he didn't deserve nice things.

He thought this wryly. He thought this drenched with sweat, staring at a ceiling fan missing its wings, just watching the spokes rotate lazily on the ceiling. Everything was bathed in that infernal yellowing light, the kind of light he could never shut out. He'd turned out the lights in every room in the house. He'd unplugged the VCR and the air conditioning since both had enough monitor light to glow in the dark, and still he could see everything.

Maybe there was more than just radiation in his DNA and poison in his blood. Maybe there was tragedy. Maybe there was a genetic code for heartache and mishap that had been with him his entire life. Half asleep as he was, he liked to picture it. His heart, weak in some places and grotesquely muscled in others, pumping away. Not just blood, but sadness. Isolation. Hatred. More than he cared to admit.

Maybe the other guy had been with him all along.

He stifled a laugh and rolled over. The other pillow was cool, not sticky with sweat like the other, and he experienced a few moments of peace before it, too, heated up under his neck. He smacked an invisible fly.

The light went out and for a few moments there was peace. Or, moderately so. There was still honking and shouting from outside, of course the bustling sounds of the bar across the street and the sporadic hits of music. The sweet scent of overripe fruit hung constantly in the air, since those who couldn't sell at market would stand out on the corner for hours, sometimes until very late at night. If they couldn't sell they would stock home, defeated, leaving lumpy and browning mangoes, pineapples, and bananas to rot in the street.

The fluorescent lights of the bar across the street kicked back on and Bruce's room was again flooded with ungodly yellow light. It was in this moment that he registered the shadow that was now thrown into relief on the opposite wall, a silhouette he thought vaguely familiar, one that disappeared immediately with the beams of light. _Almost_ immediately.

Bruce sat up. His chest and legs were both slicked with sweat and his left shin was purpled and bruising from a street vendor wheeling a carton of dates into him. Thinking a pair of striped boxers was not quite fitting for the occasion, he scooped a pair of jeans up off the floor and set about putting them on. He was just about finished with the zipper when Hawkeye, accepting that he'd been spotted, dropped in through the window and landed with barely a muted thud. There was an awkward pause as Bruce finished buttoning his pants and Hawkeye looked uncomfortably to the side, playing with the strap of his quiver.

"Clint, is it?" He finally said, extending a hand for lack of a better idea.

Clint looked at the hand and then, as a gesture of peace, took it and shook it once. "Dr. Banner. I know this may not be the best timing-"

"SHIELD has never been especially accommodating," Dr. Banner forced some barking laughter. He was referring to SHIELD's last attempt to recruit his help, which had involved them paying a young girl to lure him into a house on the outskirts of town, where Agent Romanov had been waiting for him. But that had been over a year ago, when they'd needed him desperately to help locate the tesseract - they'd left him alone since.

"Well, I'm not actually here on official SHIELD business," he admitted. "This is more of a...personal visit."

The corner of Bruce's mouth twitched into a ghost of a smile. A dangerous and highly-trained assassin visiting him at two in the morning on a humid summer's night, insisting that it was personal business? Well, that was either the beginning of an assassination attempt or a porno.

He had no feelings for Clint, at least not in that way. But the longer he spent alone the more he hated it, hated himself for hating it, hated himself for hating that he hated himself. The more he loathed the way the women on the streets looked at him, whispered to their friends of the _well-paid doctor_. They looked at him and he knew better than to look back, but there was a tug in his gut that was begging him to. And this time the tug wasn't from the other guy.

"What sort of business?" His voice came out tired, too exhausted. He scanned the room for a shirt.

"You're wanted in New York," Clint replied. "I want to make clear that this was an offer...not a demand."

"Offer from whom?" he located his glasses on the nightstand and put them on. In focus, the room looked no more welcoming and he wondered what Clint must have thought of it. But if he was curious about Bruce's less-than-adequate lodgings he betrayed nothing. He remained straight-backed with a serious expression on his face.

"Tony Stark."

"Why?" The name had definitely struck a chord in him. He had been a bad place the last few months, and it hadn't taken long for him to realize that though the danger and pressure of the Avengers had been unwelcome, the human contact had done him a lot of good. He missed the human proximity, even if it had been on strictly professional grounds.

"I understand it's something to do with...your condition," Clint continued. "But, I'm not really involved."

"Then why are you here?"

"I owed Mr. Stark a favor," Clint shifted his weight from one leg to the other, the first time he'd made a real movement since he'd dropped into the room. "And I'm relaying to you, on his behalf, that there is a jet ready to fly you to Stark Tower leaving tomorrow at nine."

"You want me to leave?" Bruce replied blankly, mostly for his own benefit.

"Not me. Tony."

Bruce ran a hand through his hair and sat on the edge of his bed. He liked to think he was doing good here, in Bangladesh. He'd carved out a bit of his name for himself amongst the locals as a good-natured albeit hard to understand doctor. He'd even picked up some Bengali, though his vocabulary was restricted mostly to medical terms and phrases ("what hurt", "where hurt", and "pee in cup" were among them). He liked it there, liked the purpose. It was one of the few places where he could maintain a life he enjoyed with people at a safe distance. Safe for them, anyways.

Clint sensed that Bruce needed time to think and withdrew from his jacket pocket a manila envelope. He put it onto Bruce's bedside table and awkwardly patted it with his fingertips. "9 AM tomorrow, details inside."

Bruce gave a half-hearted wave but Clint had already disappeared, presumably out the same window he'd arrived in. He ran a hand through his hair and looked at the envelope. It was too early in the morning to make decisions like this. But a glance at the clock - 2:18 AM - told him that he had only had about seven hours to make up his mind. How typical of Tony to assume that everyone's decisions were as spur-of-the-moment as his own.

He paced. It shouldn't have been a difficult decision at all. He'd been living in Rajshahi for eight months now. He considered himself fairly settled in and asking him to uproot his whole life here without so much as a full sentence of explanation - well, Bangladesh seemed the obvious answer. It wasn't even SHIELD business. He didn't even have to go, Clint'd made that very clear.

He lay back down in bed. Having the envelope beside him was too much temptation, he rolled over and took off his glasses, pushed the envelope onto the floor and placed his glasses on the bedside table. He pinched the bridge of his nose. If there was one complaint he could make about his stay in Rajshahi, it was that he hadn't gotten a good night's sleep since he was there.

The fan with no blades continued its pointless circuit. Occasionally it clicked. His efforts to find the electrical panel in his apartment had been unsuccessful and he'd never managed to turn the damn thing off. It just kept going in circles, accomplishing nothing. It filled him with a vague and unknowable feeling that made him want to lie down and die.

He lay on his side for what felt like an eternity, feeling himself sink inch by inch into his mattress until he was sure it had swallowed him whole. He tried to think about Rajshahi, the parks and the rivers he'd been to since his arrival, but his mind wandered back to Tony. To the envelope. It was stupid of him to immediately disregard Tony's offer. He hadn't even checked the envelope. _At least give him a chance, _he rationalized to himself before picking the envelope up off the floor.

Inside, no further details about his situation or accommodation were provided. Just a single plane ticket in Bengali, one that would get him aboard a Stark Industries jet and get him to New York.

He stared at the ticket in his palm. He sat frozen on the edge of the bed for some time, going over the past year, going over every word spoken and gesture observed. He thought about Rajshahi, about Tony, about himself, and when his mind had thoroughly exhausted every meaningful person, event, and symbol, he thought about trivial things. He thought about planes and how he felt about planes, and whether jets were safe, and what he should pack for the journey, and just how long was the flight anyway? Would amenities be provided? That automated butler, would he be on the plane? Bruce had never consciously decided to go but found himself making plans, dragging his suitcase out of the closet, dialing a cab company.

There was no real physical shift between him then and him now. But one moment, he was lying in the bed he'd slept in for the past year, and the next moment he knew that he was leaving. He closed the door behind him and the lock clicked with such finality that he knew, felt a reverberation deep in his bones, that he was never coming back.

* * *

While Bruce was busy embarking on his unexpected journey, Clint was on an unexpected detour of his own. Three stories above Bruce's apartment, Clint had sat vigilantly until he saw him exit, suitcase in hand. He'd grinned as Bruce crossed the street and stood for ten minutes before a taxi, presumably from some company he'd called inside, pulled up to the curb.

Satisfied that he'd fulfilled all duties expected off him, Clint made a mental note to never to owe Tony Stark anything again. Knowing that he was indebted to Stark was one but when Stark had called in his favor for a simple courier job - well, it was like Clint had offered him a samurai sword and he'd used it to slice cheese. And frankly, he was a little insulted.

But a deal was a deal, and with that he rose and stretched. The satisfaction of a job well done, even if it was quite possibly the easiest assignment he'd ever received, still felt pretty damn good. Clint had exonerated himself, Bruce was en route to New York, and Natasha would never even know. Clint leapt from the roof and dropped soundlessly onto the fire escape below. His descent was quick, in a matter of minutes he'd reached the ground. Now he'd got one night in Rajshahi and he was off on the same jet as Bruce first thing in the morning.

In one second something hit him. And maybe he owed it to Natasha, maybe their hours of sparring and her constant insistence that he "listen and feel with _every _fiber of his being" had finally paid off, because he felt it coming and he leapt. Not far enough to avoid getting hit, but far enough to not die. Whatever it was hit him in the shoulder and threw him several feet aside.

He regained his balance, strung his arrow and fired a shot into the darkness in one fluid movement. The nighttime air was unusually still and his arrow whizzed close enough to something that he heard fabric tear, but when he looked it was buried in a bench with only a shred of black fabric trapped underneath. Clint strung his bow again and began backing towards the wall, a good defensive position. He'd always hated battles like these, where he didn't have the high ground. He was not a close range fighter.

Moments like these brought Tasha back to him. She was all about close range fighting. He could hear her now with almost startling clarity.

"Keep your arms in, protect your center. You can't afford misses when they're up that close. Don't corner yourself - if you can't get to high ground, don't back up against a wall. It seems like a good idea, but trust me, it's the easiest way to get killed."

It was then that he realized he had just done exactly that - backed up against a wall. His instincts had told him it was the most defendable move in a situation where he couldn't even see his opponent.

He quickly realized he was wrong. His attacker had circled round and the sounds of footsteps on his right told him that he was no longer alone. Gauging the distance on sound alone he fired, felt the solid hit, and then felt them overtake him from the right. He swung his arm around and felt his elbow connect with someone's jaw, noting with a small amount of pride the satisfactory smacking sound. The smaller one had crept up behind, had a hold of his quiver. He turned rapidly, hoping to crush his assailant between himself and the wall. Instead, he found himself trapped, felt a wet rag being pressed over his mouth, felt his fists loosening and his knees going weak...

"Never panic," Tasha's voice was clear as day now, more real to him than the street and people around him. "Keep your calm and wait it out. If you want to survive, brute strength isn't going to get you anywhere. You have to bide your time."


	2. Chapter 2

**a/n:** **I'm still flushing out all the characters and whatnot, so thanks for bearing with me, hopefully i will pick up speed in later chapters. uwu thank you all so so much for your patience and i promise later chapters will not take nearly as long!**

It was a long time before Tony could persuade himself to get up. And even then, it was only because he had a sneaking suspicion that something was terribly wrong. Although, having spent the last two years headquartered with a super soldier from the 40's and subject to frequent visits from a vengeful alien god of mischief, Tony was no stranger to this feeling - in fact, he would be hard pressed to name a moment when he didn't feel as though something, somewhere was going awry.

He awoke in the lab, which was not that unusual of an occurrence. He was on the floor, which was again not all that unusual. This habit of sleeping in the lab, which had always aggravated Pepper as he inevitably knocked things over in his sleep, had grown worse in the past months. Worse, because like any good inventor or scientist, Tony's level of level of involvement in the world decreased as his involvement with his work increased. And since he'd been very busy for the past few months, Pepper had long since given up on relocating him to his room and had instead helped set him up with a mattress under a table for him to collapse on once he grew too tired.

But it was worth it. Tony Stark enjoyed a challenge. And there was arguably no challenge greater than the one he had undertaken, an problem that had proved unsolvable to many men that he considered to be greater scientific minds of his own, though he would never admit it. Tony slept surrounded by his work, his research, and it was almost comforting to wake up in the morning and roll over into papers and research, horridly outdated as they were.

There was paper everywhere. Never in his life had he seen so much paper. It was stacked on the desks, crumpled in wastebaskets, folded into paper planes that crowded in the corners of his workshop. Initially, he had tried to shred the paper when he was finished with it, but soon the shredders had filled up and jammed. He tossed paper balls out the windows until his fingers cramped. He briefly took up origami and had a small family of cranes growing on his desk.

He had never been fond of paper, and when he discovered that the research he required was so old that no one had found it necessary to make duplicates of the original print copies, well, he had about called it quits then. Instead, he'd had Jarvis call up the National Science Archives and ask after some of the research. As it had turned out, they were as unhappy with the clutter of archaic data as he was, and were more than willing to unload their years of defunct research on him.

"Good morning, sir," Jarvis clicked into operation and the lights came on around him.

"Jarvis, can we do anything about this," Tony, at a loss for words, simply motioning at the mess around him.

"I can't organize data that hasn't been entered, sir," Jarvis responded. "I'm already cataloguing what has been entered, as per your request. Would you like Clint on the phone now or later?"

It took Tony a few moments to realize who Jarvis was talking about. "Clint? Why?"

"I do recall you instructing me to dial him on this morning a little less than 24 hours ago," Jarvis said, and Tony could've sworn he heard irritability in Jarvis's tone.

And that's when Tony really woke up, really checked into his life and what was going on, and realized that, had things gone the way he had wanted, Bruce Banner was already on a plane en route to his home and he was two hours late for a confirmation call with Clint to confirm the outcome of said mission.

"Yes, Jarvis, that would be great," Tony responded, surveying his lab and struggling to piece things together in his early morning state. "Coffee as well, Jarvis, coffee would be fantastic."

"Absolutely, sir," said Jarvis. "Also, I am unable to connect to the cellular phone of Clint Barton. Should I try again?"

"Yes," was Tony's response. He crashed into a roller chair and pulled himself close to the nearest desk. He began to piece things together.

He had sent Clint out yesterday morning, 8 AM New York time, god knows what in Bangladesh time. Clint was supposed to call him at 10 AM - a generous compromise they'd reached, since Clint hated late check-ins and Tony hated rising before noon - and let him know how it had gone with Bruce, and if he was on his way to Stark Towers. A quick glance at one of the many timekeeping devices in the lab told Tony that it was 1:12 PM.

"Call failed," Jarvis alerted him. "Should I trace his cellphone location?"

Tony waved his hand away to signify 'don't bother'. It was unlike Clint to be late on a deadline, the man was such a stickler for efficiency that Tony could've sworn he had an entire quiver of those explosive arrows up his ass. Under normal circumstances he would shrug it off, but Clint's lack of a check-in meant he had no way of telling whether Bruce would be arriving or not. It was obnoxious, but Tony didn't have the time to chase Clint down and harass him about it. If he had convinced Bruce to come then he was already on his way, and Tony needed to spend all his remaining time preparing.

"Should I trace his cellphone location?" Jarvis repeated.

Which was when Tony remembered that Jarvis was a robot, not a person, and therefore did not possess eyes to witness the hand gestures that contained his answer. "No, don't worry about it. Jarvis - what's the time difference between Bangladesh and New York?"

"Where in Bangladesh, sir?"

"Rajshahi," said Tony after a pause.

"13 hours forward," Jarvis said promptly.

Tony attempted to do the mental math. Assuming Bruce did board, it was 15 hour plane ride...which meant he would be arriving at Stark Towers some time around...well, fuck it. If he came, he came, if he didn't, Tony supposed no harm had been done.

It was rather unfair of him to call upon Bruce at such short notice. Even he could admit that. But his research had been so exciting, he'd made such progress! He'd worked late and he'd worked hard, with no one around but Steve, and though they got along fine the man was hardly an understanding companion. Steve was always in awe of his work, be it constructing an advanced nuclear generator or replacing the batteries in the remote. But he wanted more than a man who could stand slack-jawed before his accomplishments. He wanted someone who would really appreciate what he was doing.

Simply put, he wanted Bruce.

Tony had never been the kind of man to dwell on the absences in his life. Sure, there were very obvious ones, his lack of real friends or family, for instance, but he'd kept himself pleasantly occupied with the Iron Man suit and the maintenance it required. His life had not been perfect but it had been good. But the Avengers had spoiled him.

Bruce's presence, well, for the first time he had been near someone who was not only respectful of and impressed with his work, but understood it. A man he could work with who was so unlike himself. Bruce was just as clever as Tony, probably more so, but so unlike him in every way: quietly humorous where Tony was raucously so, efficiently dedicated to his work while Tony slogged sporadically forward. Bruce's lab spreadsheets were meticulous and extensive files titled Lab Data-jul112012-1137pm, while Tony's were often kept in one massive folder under names like asdfhjdsheet or spreadhsethue. Simply put, Bruce fascinated him on a personal and professional level.

But loneliness was not his only reason for summoning Dr. Banner. His desire to see him again came second to a much bigger reason, and that was the true nature of his research. Tony ran a hand through his hair and knocked the top off the nearest box, grabbing a packet of files.

**ADRENALINE MUTATIONS IN THE SECONDARY SEX GLAND**

Fun reading, most of which had turned out to be entirely tedious. A team of researchers feeding rats THC. Scaring animals by clanging pots at them and then making them run on treadmills. Pointless studies that were borderline sadistic and proved to be mostly worthless. But the odd article had proved to be invaluable about the manipulative properties of adrenaline, serotonin, and other mood-related chemicals in DNA, and those were the ones that sent shivers of anticipation up and down his spine.

Bruce would be appreciative. He knew he would.

"Sir-"

Jarvis's voice suddenly slowed and cut out, as though his batteries had been pulled. The lights flickered, dimmed, and then went out. The Stark Towers back-up generator kicked on, and the emergency lights flooded the lab red.

"Hello?"

Tony had a sneaking suspicion he knew who it was.

He had tried to set up failsafe systems for times like this but with little success. Whatever level of science or "magic" Loki was operating on, it was a format his computers hadn't yet learned to read. However, Tony had made some headway in constructing a defense system. He'd picked up trace amounts of energy left by Thor's hammer in various places throughout the building and some smatterings of residual energy on the roof from the tesseract event - both of which registered as the same sort of energy in his computers. From this he'd fashioned a makeshift sort of seismograph device, except rather than reading the earth's tremors it monitored the levels of this suspicious energy in the air.

The only problem was that Loki's arrival was nigh instantaneous with the rise in said energy, or as Tony had dubbed it, the "mystical asgardian magic bullshit". In other words, the mystical Asgardian magic bullshit level would skyrocket, the detector would go off, and Loki would be there, all within the span of a few seconds. As far as alarm systems went, it was far from perfect.

Tony fumbled in the red-lit lab and switched the back-up generators on. Immediately the room was flooded with an uncomfortable blue-white light, in addition to the red back-ups flashing at all the emergency exits. He had to shield his eyes from the reflection of so much light on so much chrome and made a mental note to let the lab gather dust and dirt from now on.

"You know," he finally said, since the silence and bright lights were becoming intolerable. "I've heard of kids running away from home because they feel unloved. But running across entire galaxies? Congratulations on breaking the universal record for pettiest teenager."

There was a smash of objects and Tony turned around to see Loki, standing, having knocked over one of his many towers of file boxes. Papers slid across the floor and fluttered around him. Tony let out an audible sigh. Loki, seemingly unmoved, plucked one of the fluttering packets from the air before it hit the ground.

"Why all of this now?" Loki didn't acknowledge Tony's previous quip.

Cautiously Tony took steps toward the other side of the lab, putting more tables and space between the two of them. It was useless, this he knew, but it helped give him a sense of control. Loki visited often and had had many opportunities to kill him, but for the most part had done only minor damage. He was as his title implied, intent on doing harm and damage but unwilling to engage in battles that consumed more time and energy than he was ready to expend.

" 'Why all of this now?' " Tony repeated. "I could ask you the same question."

"I don't pretend to have any interest in what you or that Midgardian theatre troupe you call the Avengers are doing," Loki strode across the floor and sat atop one of the many tables. The flashing emergency lights lining the walkway below him loudly popped and went out. "Unless of course it involves my brother, which in this instance it does not. But I don't have time to indulge you in your usual contest of infantile witticisms, Stark. I came to ask you a question."

"Shoot."

"What do you know about cold fronts?"

"I..cold fronts?" Tony hated the way he was parroting Loki but he was simply at a loss for words. "You mean cold fronts in our sense of the word, right? Blue triangles on blue lines and all that…weather stuff?"

"Considering Asgard does not have a word for cold front, yes, I do mean 'your' sense of the word," Loki replied irritably. "And I suggest if you plan on living awhile longer you brush up on your research - living here, at any rate."

"Okay, wait," Tony responded. "I can't tell, is this advice or a threat?"

"A little of both," Loki waved his hand dismissively. "I'm trying to do you a favor, you might actually benefit from it if you stop acting like … what were your words? A petulant teen?"

"Petty teenager, yeah," said Tony. "What's the deal with cold fronts though? Should I be expecting the Chitauri to ride in on a gust of wind? Will they be using umbrellas? Should I board up the chimney?"

Loki grinned and stood up. "You ought to be careful, Stark. You may act like everything is foolishness to you but that is the kind of attitude that can get you killed."

"Your advice is duly noted," Tony said sourly. "I will call an emergency meeting of meteorologists as soon as my phone lines are up again."

Loki scowled. "You are trifling with things beyond your imagining, Anthony Stark. Your carelessness may cost you dearly."


End file.
